Estonian Photos - Part 10

 Estonian Photos

Here's another group of photos from the Tartu Ülikooli museum of anthropology in Estonia, with an additional clue as to when the photos were taken.

The museum provides no information about the men, other than the photos came from the Institute of Anatomy.  In particular, it does not say who these men are, or when or why the photos were taken.

My best guess is that they are military recruits.  The very short haircuts suggest that these photos were taken during the enlistment process.

The dark faces and hands of many of the men suggests that they are either deeply tanned from working outside like farmers, or they are dirty from working in a place like a coal mine. Estonia doesn't have any coal mines, but it has oil shale mines, which would make the workers just as dirty.

When were the photos taken?  My initial assumption was between World War I and World War II, when Estonia was an independent country with its own military.  Before WWI, Estonia was part of the Russian Empire, and after WWII, Estonia was part of the Soviet Union until 1991.

Another clue is that these photographs were made on glass plates, not film.  Dry glass-plate photography started in 1871 and began to fall out of use in the 1920s.  I found some references to it in Estonia through the 1930s.

There's another clue in these photos, as we'll see later.

Although these appear to be military recruits, these may or may not not be military photos.  It's possible that the photos were taken by the military to evaluate the results of physical training of the soldiers, not as posture photos.  The U.S. Army and Navy took similar photos for this purpose.

However, we know that the museum that currently has the photos got them from the Institute of Anatomy at the University of Tartu.  If these are military photos, why would they end up at the Institute of Anatomy?

A likely solution is that the photos were taken by academics.  Scientists at the Institute of Anatomy were doing studies to try to measure what they considered racial characteristics of the population by measuring the body, including phrenology (measuring the skull), ideas which are now discredited.

At the time these studies were being done, it's possible that the scientists at the Institute of Anatomy persuaded the military to let them take photographs of the naked new recruits for "research" purposes. 

I have no written evidence to support this idea, but since the photos were at the Institute of Anatomy, and the photo subjects appear to be military recruits, it's now my favorite theory as to what happened.

This batch of photos contains one more clue to the time period.  #638 is wearing a wristwatch.  This is the first wristwatch to appear in the photos that I have published so far.  After a quick examination of the hundreds of men that I haven't published yet, only one other man is wearing a wristwatch.

Wristwatches were generally considered to be for ladies before World War I.  (Men used pocket watches.)  However, during the war, wristwatches proved very useful for soldiers and pilots.

After WWI, wristwatches came into fashion for men.  Although they were evidently rare in Estonia, at least among the men in these photos, I think it's likely that these photos are post-World War I.